There’s a real ball of … wax rolling around in the Feisty forums today. At the center is the question of whether you can use the Feisty kernel in conjunction with an Edgy installation. As I understand it, it might serve to benefit dual-core users.

I’m going to stick with PriceChild on this one, and condense my answer to yes, you can. And no, you shouldn’t.

My rationale boils down to this: In my mind, Feisty and everything attached to it are beta, which says to be incomplete and possibly buggy. In fact, since Herd 1 is just out the door, it’s really alpha software.

You can grab that kernel if you think it’ll do you some good and if you think you can handle it, but you’re putting your own neck out there when things go wrong. The inevitable “my system is borked” thread is what you’ll be typing up next … on your Mom’s 733Mhz WinME system, no doubt.

If you’re experienced enough, compile it yourself — or tweak your installation to get around that quirk that’s bugging you. But expect beta — no, alpha releases to have alpha results, particularly when you’re mixing them with standing installations.

And so once more, just for good measure: Yes, you can. No, you shouldn’t.